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The Czech Republic is a stable and prosperous market economy closely integrated with the EU, especially since the country's EU accession in 2004. The auto industry is the largest single industry, and, together with its upstream suppliers, accounts for nearly 24% of Czech manufacturing. The Czech Republic produced more than a million cars for the first time in 2010, over 80% of which were exported. While the conservative, inward-looking Czech financial system has remained relatively healthy, the small, open, export-driven Czech economy remains sensitive to changes in the economic performance of its main export markets, especially Germany. When Western Europe and Germany fell into recession in late 2008, demand for Czech goods plunged, leading to double digit drops in industrial production and exports. As a result, real GDP fell sharply in 2009. The economy slowly recovered in the second half of 2009 and registered weak growth in the next two years. In 2012 and 2013, however, the economy fell into a recession again, due both to a slump in external demand in the EU and to the government’s austerity measures, returning to weak growth in 2014. Foreign and domestic businesses alike voice concerns about corruption, especially in public procurement. Other long term challenges include dealing with a rapidly aging population, funding an unsustainable pension and health care system, and diversifying away from manufacturing and toward a more high-tech, services-based, knowledge economy. More »

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Within Central and Eastern Europe, how you feel about the very rich may depend on whether you are Polish, Czech or Bulgarian, according to a report from Forbes Insights and Societe Generale Private Banking, “Emerging Markets: Joining the Global Ranks of Wealth Creators—Africa, Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East.” The study looks at read »

With Eastern Europe tied to its Western neighbors, the economic malaise in Western Europe is bound to affect the fortunes of the Eastern Europe’s wealthiest. Though there has been some movement in the billions made by the region’s top entrepreneurs, it’s been uneven at best and reflects the tough markets that many have to contend with. read »

For weeks now, the European food industry has been rocked by a scandal involving meat products tainted with horse and donkey meat. Now, the whole unsavory affair has also struck IKEA, whose Köttbullar Swedish meatballs had become a cult classic among customers. But in the Czech Republic read »

Every investor knows about the middle income trap. That’s when countries hit a certain income level, say around $15,000 annually per capita, and growth ceases to impress. The economy moves slower. It goes through bouts of recessions, some steeper than others. Middle class economies contract. Poorer economies on route to middle read »

In some countries it would be grounds for arrest. Some 35,000 years ago, an Ice Age sculptor carved a mammoth tusk into a naked female figure with impossibly large breasts. Thighs and buttocks were also exaggerated, and her legs were salaciously spread. Archeologists dubbed her the Venus of Hohle Fels after the German cave where she was found. read »

Today we take our local drugstores for granted. They are everywhere in large cities in the U.S. and in Europe. But that wasn’t the case in Germany in the early 1970s. Dirk Rossmann, 66, founded the first self-service drugstore in the country in 1972, and has since turned Dirk Rossmann GmbH into a company with 2,775 stores in six European read »

Lynn Tilton and her private equity fund Patriarch Partners have been subject to multi-year investigations conducted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Defense (DOD), according to a source familiar with the matter along with declarations filed by SEC lawyers in the commission’s administrative read »

Inevitably it seems that rivers are one of two things to a city: either a vital, vibrant artery stitching it historically together (think the Seine through Paris, the Sumida through Tokyo, or the Chicago River through the downtown Windy City), or an industrial, black water pipeline which, decade after decade, sacrifices a thriving, read »

If you don’t have $4 million to purchase an original 1960s-era Aston Martin DB4 GT, give the British automaker a call. They are building another handful of the prized sports cars in a continuation run. Each of the new DB4 GT models will sell for about $1.9 million — and, that’s a bargain. read »